Food for Thought: How Some Restaurants in Burnaby Repeatedly Fail Health Inspections

Everyone eats out, but not many people look into health infractions to see if where they are eating is safe.
(Ashley Moliere / BCIT News)

Almost everyone living in Metro Vancouver eats in restaurants from time to time. Whether you go frequently or occasionally, almost all of us take the luxury of going to a restaurant for granted.

Have you ever thought about how that food gets to you? Between the storage, refrigeration, preparation, handling and cooking – a lot can go wrong.

Foodborne illnesses (commonly referred to as food poisoning) are a big problem. The procedures that restaurants take in the preparation of food can have a big impact on the likelihood that you leave their restaurant feeling fantastic, or feeling terrible. According to Environmental Services manager for Burnaby and New Westminster for Fraser Health, Gordon Stewart, many of these infractions are avoidable.

“Most of the infractions we find are probably going to be human error. People that are not washing their hands when they should be, cross-contaminating food unkowingly.” – Gordon Stewart, Manager of Environmental Services at Fraser Health

Through cross-referencing Tripadvisor, Google reviews and Yelp, we took a look at Burnaby’s top fifty restaurants and did a deep dive into their health inspections. These restaurants were measured by their likeliness of passing along a foodborne illness to a customer. Beyond that, we examined why these problems occur, and why restaurants run into food safety issues in the first place.

38% of Burnaby’s top restaurants repeated the same critical infraction at least 3 times

It could have been any infraction so long as the restaurant violated the same one. It should be noted that it is hard to know from the data if the repeat infraction was for the exact same reason (for example: a refrigeration infraction could be the fridge one day and the salad bar another day).

40 of Burnaby’s top 50 restaurants had at least one critical sanitation infraction

Sanitation violations were almost 40% of all critical infractions measured. Sanitation infractions can be any sanitation issue that could cause a foodborne illness such as utensils containing traces of food or food preparation surfaces not sanitized safely.

There were a total of 292 critical violations

Of the top 50 Burnaby restaurants, there were 292 total critical violations since January 2017. That’s an average of just under 6 violations per restaurant – but Sushi Town (33 violations) inflates the average.

Only four restaurants had 0 critical infractions

The only four restaurants without a critical infraction since January 2017:

Atlast Steak and Fish

The Pear Tree Restaurant

Fraser Park Restaurant

Golden Pita

Five restaurants had 10 or more critical infractions

The five restaurants with ten or more critical infractions between January 2017-October 2018 were:

Sushi Town (33)

Yaguchiya Ramen (14)

Chad Thai (13)

Little Billy’s Steakhouse (11)

Myst Asian Fusion (10)

One restaurant had 33 critical infractions… more than double the next closest.

Sushi Town had 33 critical infractions. Both Sushi Town & second place Yaguchiya were contacted by phone, email & in person, but neither responded before the publication of this article.

Fraser Health Inspections

Sushi Town is the worst on the top-rated list with 33 critical infractions between January 2017 and October 2018.
(Fraser Health)

Stewart said they use health inspections to hold restaurants accountable. He said that inspectors show up unannounced, to conduct routine inspections that are key to assessing the day-to-day actions of restaurants. These inspections are done three times a year, sometimes more often if infractions are committed and need to be followed up on. Inspections are also conducted if a complaint is received by a customer.

Stewart cited the B.C. Health Act and the Food Premise/Regulations Legislation as the primary documents health inspectors refer to when issuing infractions to restaurants. He said that an infraction is sorted as “critical” or “non-critical” based on the likelihood that a restaurant’s action could cause a foodborne illness.

Restaurant threat levels are low, moderate and high which are determined by a point system based on the severity and quantity of critical infractions.

Stewart said that there are two main factors causing restaurants to commit infractions in his region of Burnaby and New Westminster: high turnover of staff and management issues. He said that many people don’t stay because they aren’t paid enough, and that managers often focus on hospitality, speed, efficiency and profitability but often cut corners with labour costs, which causes a higher probability of health infractions.

“The person managing the restaurant doesn’t have the same kind of buy-in because it’s not their restaurant. They don’t take on the responsibilities as seriously as they should.” – Gordon Stewart, Manager of Environmental Services at Fraser Health

Like Stewart, Projects Manager for the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association, Samantha Scholefield confirmed that a major factor working against the restaurant industry is high turnover rates. Not being able to retain quality, consistent staff may contribute to a decline in health standards, because staff might not have been trained properly.

“The hardest thing to do when you have a big turnover is to make sure you have consistent training.” – Samantha Scholefield, BC Restaurant and Food Services Association

Scholefield said that another contributing factor to improper training in B.C. in particular, is that there are less young people looking to work in the food-services industry. For every 3 people leaving, there are only 2 young people stepping in to replace them. This leads to business owners having do more of the work themselves. Scholefield says restaurants can help themselves by putting more of an emphasis on day-to-day training, to keep sanitation practices consistent.

Many restaurants are suffering from staff shortages with cleanliness being put on the back burner.
(Pixabay)

Restaurant Closure Steps

Stewart described the process of how Fraser Health goes about shutting down a restaurant:

Step 1: Education

The first step is issuing a critical infraction. The inspector finds that a procedure in a restaurant has a critical risk of causing a foodborne illness, so they alert the manager on duty and educate them about why the procedure is a violation and how to fix it. These violations get published online for the public to see, along with a violation code and an exact description of what happened in the inspection.

If an infraction is enough of a risk to the public, the inspector has the authority to shut down the restaurant on the spot.

The issuing of a critical infraction causes a follow up inspection.

Step 2: Correction Order

After the violation is documented and education has been issued, Fraser Health conducts a follow up inspection to ensure that the critical infraction has been fixed.

If the critical infraction is repeated on the next inspection, a correction order is issued. A correction order is a notice to the restaurant that they are in violation of the BC Health Act of the Food Premises Regulations, and that they must comply or get fined.

Step 3: Violation Ticket

If a correction order was issued, another follow up inspection must occur. In this follow up inspection if the critical infraction is still not fixed, the inspector issues a violation ticket.

A violation ticket is around $600 that the restaurant must pay to remain open.

Step 4: Restaurant Closure

If the inspector comes back and the same violation happens a fourth time, then the restaurant gets closed.

This opens a larger Fraser Health investigation into the restaurant.

Step 5: Negotiations

If the owner wishes to re-open their restaurant, they must sit down with Fraser Health officials with a plan to rectify the violations. They must convince a panel that they will change their practices and fix the procedure that was in violation.

The panel will then deliberate and determine if they are allowed to re-open.

Methodology

All food inspections done on restaurants within Fraser Health’s jurisdiction are posted online to be as transparent as possible. The top 50 restaurants were put into a spreadsheet, with all of their critical infractions tracked from January 1st 2017 until October 31st, 2018.

By the numbers

Violations

There are eleven different critical violations that have occurred in Burnaby restaurants since the beginning of last year. Almost all of the eleven break down into 4 main categories:

The other side of the dish

Not every kitchen is bad. Four restaurants in Burnaby had no critical infractions within the last two years.
(Pixabay)

There were four restaurants out of Burnaby’s top 50 that didn’t have any critical infractions between January 2017 and October 2018.

One of these restaurants is Fraser Park Restaurant in south Burnaby. Fraser Park Manager, Maritel Guy, said that maintaining a hazard free restaurant is about training staff properly. She said that their restaurant closes at two in the afternoon, but staff members stay until six each day to clean and sanitize the restaurant.

“It has to be a habit and I spread it to all my staff. Everybody has to keep it clean…we always assume the health inspector will be here every day.” – Maritel Guy, Manager at Fraser Park Restaurant

Another restaurant that was on the zero infraction list is The Pear Tree on Hastings. Executive Chef of Vancouver-based Juniper, Warren Chow, once apprenticed at the restaurant under chef Scott Jaeger and said that he has now implemented many of the same procedures.

Do people care?

Isabella Lo, a food blogger who runs the food_tique instagram account frequents all types of restaurants. She said the amount of critical infractions that a restaurant may have is concerning, but she never checks health scores before she eats at a restaurant.

“I use Yelp a lot, and Yelp will have a notification that warns users if a restaurant has a particularly low health score. This is the only time that I’ll reconsider going to a restaurant, but even then, if it’s a restaurant I really want to try, I would overlook it.” – Isabella Lo, Food Blogger

Lo said her growing up in a Chinese household gives her a different perspective when considering a restaurants health practices.

Isabella says she usually doesn’t look to see how many infractions a restaurant has.
(food_tique / Instagram)

“I think the standard of cleanliness for Chinese restaurants are significantly lower than maybe a standard “western” restaurant. This made me used to dining at restaurants with a less desirable cleanliness level and ambiance” – Isabella Lo, Food Blogger

Restaurants that carry with them a certain reputation, for instance being a “hole in the wall”, don’t bother Lo either. These restaurants often offer regional dishes that can’t be found anywhere else. Lo said this may be due to the fact that these dishes haven’t yet caught the attention of the general public. She also said that her and her sisters will only write about cleanliness if it’s a blatant issue.